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Fewer Ontario dropouts, but still no local graduation rate figures, say boards

The premier says Ontario's high school graduation rate increased to 81% last year, but local school boards say they still don't have the data to know if they are keeping pace.

Dalton McGuinty's office released the 2009-2010 numbers on Tuesday. The statistic shows the government is on its way to meeting its previously announced target of having an 85% graduation rate this school year.

Last year's figure is up 13 percentage points from 68% in 2003-04, when the Liberals took office.

Directors for the Algoma District School Board and Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board say they think they're keeping pace with the provincial numbers, but can't verify it because they don't have the ability to accurately track students as they move through the system from Grade 9 to Grade 12.

"Provincially, they can do it through what are called Ontario Education Numbers, and they've got those stats in a database," said John Stadnyk, director of education for the Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board. "Individually, in our boards, because kids move from board to board and we lose kids along the way, we can't track them, so it's hard for us to measure the graduates, compared to the number of Grade 9s."

He said the Ministry of Education recognizes boards are unable to track that data.

Mario Turco, ADSB director, said school boards are really only able to track how well its programs are doing. So, while they board can say how many students graduate a given high school or from its Late School program, it can't say how many kids who enter Grade 9 successfully graduate. So, the board doesn't have figures it can compare to the province's definition of a graduation rate, he said.

Students move around "a lot," said Turco.

"A lot of kids drop out, then they come back in, so there's that definition too," he said.

While boards do know how many students graduate from their high schools each year, declining enrolment makes it complicated to make year-to-year comparisons, Stadnyk said.

Instead, the H-SCDSB tracks how many credits students are accumulating and uses that as a benchmark, he said.